Day 24 - 29 Dec.2011 - Punta del Este

The first thing today in the morning was to sort out the Carta Verde. We looked up some info in the internet and on one blog a Brazilian traveller published a quotation of an insurance company with the address of the local brunch. It turned out to be right in front of our hotel. The agent pointed out that although we had the declaration from the rental company authorised by the embassies, the actual car owner is not the rental company but a bank, from which we did not have any authorisation. The agent suggested first to go to the border and get the documents checked, and if the border control were happy with them, we could get the Carta Verde done in no time. So we did and luckily there was no problem at all and by 11AM we were driving on the Uruguayan side.
We stopped at the fortress Santa Teresa, but unfortunately it only opens at 1PM. We didn’t feel like waiting so long and left it with visiting it from the outside only. After some 300km we arrived in Punta del Este, one of the most touristic places in Uruguay. The place thoroughly impressed us with its good ultra modern architecture and carefully designed landscaping. On the whole it appears that Uruguayans have appreciation for design, arts and, as we later found out, you can also indulge yourself here in good cuisine. As it was just the New Year’s weekend, half of Uruguay seems to spend their holidays there and we were really struggling to find a place to stay. In the end we managed to find a small room for a staggering 140 US$! This place was definitely not after our liking, but as it was already late we decided to stay.
Punta del Este and its surrounding beaches felt as being nearly too perfect, as if it wasn’t for real, a bit like in Truman Show. The neighbourhoods were all well designed and maintained and the people seem to be all good looking and wealthy, there were no beggars, no homeless dogs nor cats. Truly bizarre, especially if you keep in mind how simple people live just outside this ‘holiday paradise’.
In the evening we went out to have dinner and found ourselves a nice restaurant by the beach with Clericot to drink. This seems to be the Uruguayan equivalent to the Spanish Sangria, just with more fruits and with white wine – really highly recommended.